Vets outraged over loss of Fallujah

Fallujah, Ramadi — the city names that represent major American battles of the Iraq War are under control of al-Qaeda militants, and Camp Pendleton Marines who fought those hard-won victories in 2004 and 2006 are expressing outrage and despair.

Last week, al-Qaeda forces raised their flag over government buildings in Fallujah and seized parts of nearby Ramadi. Fighting continued Monday, as Iraq’s prime minister urged Fallujah residents to expel the militants.

It’s the most direct challenge to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government since the departure of American forces two years ago. Both the United States and its longtime rival Iran view the escalating conflict with alarm, with neither wanting to see al-Qaeda take firmer root inside Iraq.

Duncan Hunter

Duncan Hunter

Duncan Hunter

Richard Gilbert

Richard Gilbert

Richard Gilbert

Washington has ruled out sending in American troops but recently delivered dozens of Hellfire missiles to help bolster Iraqi forces.

As the news broke last week, Marine veteran Richard Gilbert was casting about for ideas to help. It left him unable to sleep.

As a young infantryman with Camp Pendleton’s 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Gilbert participated in the second battle of Fallujah in November 2004.

“As soon as I found out (Friday), I just had a burning desire to go back. If my old battalion commander called me right now, and said we’re going back to take Fallujah again, I would drop everything in my life right now to try to be a part of that,” said Gilbert, 29, now a senior at UC San Diego.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, served with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in Fallujah in early 2004.

Veterans say Fallujah holds a revered place in their war memories. Gilbert’s battalion lost 33 Marines during that deployment, most of which was spent holding that city.

Michael Mack was an infantryman in the same unit.

"To see it all be for nothing, it's like a kick in the b--ls," said Mack, 28, who went on to serve another two tours in Iraq.

In the so-called First Battle of Fallujah in April 2004, U.S. coalition forces fought into the center of the city, only to pull back so that Iraqi-run security forces could take the lead.

In the second battle, in November, U.S. forces took and held the city thanks to some of the bloodiest fighting to that point in the Iraq War. It marked the switch from fighting Bathists left over from the Saddam Hussein regime to facing al-Qaeda-linked insurgents.

Sometimes referred to at the Marine Corps’ biggest urban battle since Hue City in Vietnam, American infantry used everything from mortars to hand-to-hand combat. Gilbert said he remembers that people whose houses were destroyed still thanked the Marines after they routed the insurgents.

“We’re kind of sitting here with two emotions,” Gilbert said Monday. “You either think all my men died for nothing because they are back, and the problem is still there. At the same time, you can feel, let’s go back and take over the city again, because I don’t want my friends to have died for nothing.”

The latest unrest in Anbar province began on Dec. 28, when Iraqi security forces arrested a Sunni lawmaker sought on terrorism charges. Two days later, the government dismantled a months-old, anti-government Sunni protest camp, sparking clashes with militants.

Sectarian tensions in Iraq have been coming to a head for months, however. Violence spiked after the government staged a deadly crackdown on a Sunni protest camp last April. Militants have also targeted civilians, particularly in Shiite areas of Baghdad, with waves of coordinated car bombings and other deadly attacks.

The United States pulled the last American troops from Iraq in December 2011, fulfilling a 2008 campaign promise made by President Barack Obama to end an unpopular war.

Negotiations to leave behind a small, residual force failed over Iraq’s refusal to grant legal immunity to American troops.

Richard Gilbert fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah with Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in November 2004.

/ Courtesy photo

Richard Gilbert fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah with Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in November 2004.

Richard Gilbert fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah with Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in November 2004. (/ Courtesy photo)

Hunter — a Republican often at odds with the Obama administration over defense policy — tracks the current fighting directly back to the decision to leave without a stay-behind force.

“It was a huge failure, and that led to this, straight up. No in-between points. That was point A, this is point B,” Hunter said.

But two of these Fallujah veterans said reinserting U.S. troops now is not the answer.

“Now you’ve been away for three years. So you have a total lack of intelligence about putting guys on the ground — where would you put them, who would you put them with,” Hunter said.

“We want to encourage the Iraqis to do it on their own. I guess we’re going to see if they can do it on their own,” he said.

Gilbert, a UCSD communications major in his final term, said he sees pitfalls in trying to help now.

“We give them these weapons, and eventually they are going to end up in the wrong hands no matter what,” he said.

“Our hands are tied, either way we go. Let’s go do Fallujah 2014 and let’s lose another 100 American lives — why? So we can pull out, and al-Qaeda can take it over in another two years.”

Mack said he is torn.

"Part of me wants to go back in, but I don't want to see people die again and then the same thing happens."

On Monday, Iraqi government troops had surrounded Fallujah, a city just 40 miles west of the capital of Baghdad. It is located in the vast Sunni-dominated and largely desert province of Anbar, which borders Syria, where al-Qaeda-linked groups are among the most formidable fighters among the rebels trying to topple President Bashar Assad.

Lt. Gen. Rasheed Fleih, who leads the Iraqi army’s Anbar Military Command, told state TV that “two to three days” are needed to push the militants out of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi.

According to the United Nations, Iraq had the highest annual death toll in 2013 since the worst of the sectarian bloodletting began to subside in 2007. The U.N. said violence killed 8,868 last year.